Tuesday, 5 June 2012

Putin´s cossacks soon to guard border against China

Vladimir Putin wants to use cossacks as boarder guards against China

Vladimir Putin has been meeting his fellow autocrats in Peking. They have one shared interest: Discouraging demands for democracy everywhere. However, despite the talk about "strategic partnership", the reality of the relationship is this:

"Russia can talk about a strategic partnership with China but they will never be actual allies because China is too much of a potential threat to Russia," a Western diplomat said. "Russia cannot avoid being concerned about China."

Suggesting Russia's fears over China, Moscow has been bolstering its military presence in the Far East and around China with plans to move the first of its newest class of submarines to the Pacific Fleet at Vladivostok

Other programs, some of them more colorful than of obvious strategic significance, are aimed at strengthening Russia's borders. The next school year will include the training of the region's first corps of Cossacks, according to local media - a reference to the informal frontier force used by the tsars to repel enemies and whose name has been revived amid a general nostalgia for the imperial past under Putin's 12-year dominance.